Well, I'm so excited to be here
tonight, and it seems like the weekend has just started and
now we're towards the end. In fact, this is my last time
to be able to bring the Word of God to you and to minister
to you, and let me say right now what a joy it has been for
me personally to be able to share this time with you, to interact
with you and to count you as a friend. And I thank God, and
I just trust that these hours and days that we have spent together
will leave its impact upon eternity. Tonight, I want us again to sit
under the ministry of the Word of God. And I want us to be discipled
again by our older brother, Jonathan Edwards, through his ministry
and through his exposition of the Word of God. And what I have
to say tonight, some of you may not consider to be as important
as other messages that I might bring. But that is only because
you do not grasp the magnitude of what I'm about to share with
you. If you were a little bit older and more advanced down
the path of life, I think it would – you would recognize the
extreme importance of what I'm about to share with you tonight.
And for those of you who will have ears to hear and eyes to
see and a heart to receive what we will talk about tonight together,
I believe that you will be well positioned to be marked out as
a Jonathan Edwards or as a Sarah Edwards in this generation. What I want to talk to you tonight
about is the use of your time. Because if you waste your time,
you're going to waste your life. God has given to you only so
much time. And before eternity, or an eternity
passed before time even began, God portioned out for you so
much time for you to use for His kingdom and for His work.
And He will not give you any more time. And what you are to
do for God must be done within the time that He has given to
you. And that clock is ticking right
now, this very moment. And the impact of your life upon
time and eternity hinges upon the wise use of your time. And if you will use your time
wisely, you will be positioned to be used by God in an extraordinary
way. Jonathan Edwards said, oh God,
stamp eternity upon my eyeballs. that everything He looked at
and in every situation with which He was confronted, that He would
have an eternal perspective, that He would see with an eternal
vantage point every opportunity and every moment in time. And
so tonight, I want to speak to you on maximizing your time and
capturing the opportunities to serve God and to be used by God
during the time that you have. Now the reason why I said earlier
that you may not feel the weight of importance upon this is because
for the most part here tonight, most of you are younger. And
when you're younger, you assume, I have so much more time left. Almost like as if you had a lot
of money in your pocket. And as you would go to spend
that money, it's no problem because I have more money in the other
pocket. And if I squander a little, that's
all right because I still have money to use however I would
want to use it. Wise is the man, wise is the
woman here tonight who realizes that every one of those coins
of time that has been put into your pocket has been put there
by a sovereign God from before the foundation of the world.
And every one of those coins of time must be invested in God's
kingdom to yield return and throughout eternity future in a maximum
way that will glorify and honor God. Jonathan Edwards understood
that to purpose to live for the glory of God was not something
ethereal and merely philosophical that was disconnected from the
nitty-gritty of life. He understood that if I am to
glorify God, it must impact the totality of my life and that
it will intersect at the most practical areas of my day-to-day
existence. And I want to submit to you that
there is nothing more practical and nothing more relevant than
how you invest your time for the kingdom of God while you
have time in this lifetime. Because the time is coming when
you will have no more time. The time is coming when you will
step out of time and into eternity, and you will be in either heaven
or hell forever, and you will never again step back into time. This is a moment in time that
you have to live for God, and it will never be replicated again. You only have one life to live
for God, and you must live it to the maximum while you have
time right now. And right now while you are young,
right now while you have your strength, right now while the
road is open before you, now is the time to live full tilt
for the glory of God, that God may use you to your maximum. So tonight, this is what I want
to do. I have here in my notebook several things. I want to share
with you a couple more of the resolutions. that speak to the
issue of the use of your time. And no matter who you are or
where you are, this speaks directly to your life. And then what I
want to do is I want to take one of Jonathan Edwards' sermons,
and though dead yet he speaketh. And I want Jonathan Edwards to
speak again to our hearts as he will take a passage from the
book of Ephesians, redeem the time. for us to redeem the time
that we have. And I want to conclude by going
to the very end of Jonathan Edwards' life. And I want us to see Him
on His deathbed. And I want us to see Him at the
end of His life. And I want us to see a man who
was content that He had filled up His time and that He had given
Himself completely and supremely for the glory of God. He died
without regret. He died with resolution that
His life had counted for time and for eternity. That's how
I want you to end your life. when you come to the end of your
life, that you would live… have lived with a sense of fulfillment,
that you would be content upon your deathbed, that I have lived
full tilt and maximized my life, this only life I will ever have,
to live for the glory of God. Well, I want us to look now at
some of these resolutions. And as we look at these resolutions,
they will deal with time and death and eternity. Time and
death and eternity, and I submit to you, nothing could be more
practical for your life tonight than for God to stamp eternity
upon your eyeballs. I want to begin by looking at
resolution number 5. Resolution number 5, and I hope
that you're becoming familiar with the little booklet that
was given to you that lists all 70 of the resolutions. Resolution
number 5 is one of the first resolutions that he penned. It
was heavy upon his heart. It was one of the first that
had to find expression through his pen onto parchment that he
would chart the course of his life by this resolution. I want to begin by reading it. Resolution number five, resolved.
Never to lose one moment of time. but improve it the most profitable
way I possibly can." Jonathan Edwards understood that if he
wasted his time, he would dishonor God, he would rob God of His
glory, and he could only honor God and glorify God if he lived
every moment of every day full tilt for the glory of God. Look
at this again, resolved. Never to lose one moment of time,
which is to say, value your time. Value your time. Edwards realized
that no time was to be lost while living in this world. He understood
he could lose money, he could lose relationships, and regain
them later. But he could never lose time
and ever secure it again. Once it is lost, it is lost forever
and it can never be reinvested for the kingdom of God. Jonathan
Edwards, listen to these verses. Job 14 verse 5, write down that
verse. Job 14 verse 5. since man's days are determined. The number of his months is with
you, and his limits you have set so that he cannot pass."
What that verse is saying is that before time began, In eternity
past, God determined how many days you would have to live upon
this planet. And you will not live one day
beyond the determined number of days that God has for you. And quite frankly, you will not
live one less day than what God has already prescribed and ordained
for you. Your days are determined and
the number of your months is with God and God has set a limit
on your time and that clock is ticking right now. And you will
not and cannot pass the allotted number of days that God has for
you, therefore every moment in time is an eternal moment that
must be used for the glory of God. Psalm 139, verse 16. My twin boys are here on the
second row, and I remember before they were born, my wife needle-pointed
this verse, and it hung over their cribs. These verses… this
verse says, in your book were all written the days that were
ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them." You
see, God has a book, and written in this book is God's eternal
decree. And no one has ever written in
this book but God. No one has ever looked into this
book but God. And contained in this book is
the entirety of human history. And contained in this book is
the entirety of the course of your life, which God has marked
out before the foundations of the world. And your life will
be lived within the boundaries of what God has already marked
out for your life. The time that God has allotted
you is a gift from God and it must be used for God and used
for God's glory. It is not to be wasted or squandered
or used on anything else but for the glory of God. Psalm 90
verse 12, Moses writing this psalm, it's the oldest of the
psalms. Moses said and wrote, so teach
us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of
wisdom. You know why you need to number
your days? Because God has numbered your days. God has numbered your
days and they are appointed by God. And wise is the man, wise
is the woman who values every one of those days, every one
of those hours and seconds, and seeks with a heart of wisdom
to use that time to the maximum for the Savior. When I was here
two years ago, I shared this with you. Some of you may recall
this. When I went off to college, like
most of you here tonight are at college, I grew up in Memphis,
Tennessee. I went out to West Texas, to
Texas Tech to go to college. I did not know one person on
the entire campus. I was scared. And I remember
my dad moving me into the dorm room, and there one of the other
guys on the football team was in that dorm room with me. My
mom, my dad, we moved all of my belongings in, and it came
time for them to walk out of that dorm room and get in the
car and drive all the way back to Memphis. And I remember my
dad reached into his pocket, and he pulled out some money,
and he put it in my hand. And he said, this is what you
have to live on until you come home for Christmas. I knew my dad. He is the most
frugal human being who has ever lived on the planet. I still
order a small Coke and just he's on my shoulder. Everything that
I do, he's still talking in my ear. And my mother is on the other
shoulder saying, order an extra large Coke. But my dad, as he gave me that
money, he said, you have $200 for the semester. And he reached into his pocket
and he still had a $1 bill in his pocket. And he pulled it
out. And no one can work a dollar
bill. like my dad. I was hypnotized
watching him. And he said, every time you pull
one of these out of your pocket, he said, just remember, that's
one less dollar that you have to spend. I'm telling you that that presentation
is...it is still etched upon my mind. And I understood that
for the next three and a half months, every decision that I
would make regarding what I needed, what I needed to buy, the food
I needed to have, etc., it all had to come in the perspective
that I had only so much money. I want you to know God has put
only so much time into your pocket. And every day that you live,
you need to put your hand in your pocket and consider that
day as a gift from God. Psalm 118 verse 24 says, this
is a day which the Lord has made, I shall rejoice and be glad in
it. Every day is a God-ordained day. Every day is a day that God has
created for His glory and for your good, for your pleasure,
for His pleasure, and it needs to be wisely invested and wisely
spent because the time will come, you will come to the end of those
days, and there will be no more time left to invest for God. And within time, Not only is
there only an allotted amount of time, but there are also God-orchestrated
opportunities within time. There are windows of time. There are seasons of time. There
are open doors of time in which you may do certain things for
God, but only in this appointed time. And if you do not capture
that moment and do not fulfill that time, that opportunity may
be lost forever. Jesus said in John 2 verse 4,
my hour has not yet come. In John 17, verse 1, Jesus said,
Father, the hour has come. And we heard this morning from
Mark 14, verse 41, the hour has come. That hour is not referring
to 630 or 522, it is referring to a God-appointed time in which
you have to do the will of God and it cannot be done at any
other time. There are opportunities from
God within time. That's why the Bible says, seek
the Lord while He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near. There are times and seasons in
which you may find the Lord and seek the Lord, and times when
He will not be found. Jonathan Edwards was resolved
not to lose one moment. of time. And while you seemingly
have so many of those coins of time in your pocket, do not assume
that you have tomorrow. Live for the glory of God this
moment today. Ephesians 5 verse 15 through
17, therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but
as wise, making the most of your time. Here He is calling upon
us to maximize your time, not only to value it but to maximize
your time. In other words, to redeem the
time, to buy up the time now while you have the opportunity.
It's like when you go into a store and sometimes, or at least it
used to be, that they would put something on sale for ten minutes
or for fifteen minutes and you'd hear it over the loudspeakers.
Some really high-class places. Again, my father took me into
these venues. Men's t-shirts for the next ten
minutes, shoppers beware. But those were windows of time,
opportunities of time, measured parentheses within time in which
an opportunity could be seized and grabbed or it would not be
had. My friend, God has given you
only so much time and there will be no more. You must invest it
and within that time, there are opportunities in which God opens
doors for you and those doors will later close and you must
go through those doors and you must serve God and seize the
moment as God provides it. And Jonathan Edwards, when he
was 18 years old, he was such a wise young man. He understood
no matter how much longer he had to live for God, he wasn't
just going to hang out. He wasn't going to waste his
time because he would waste his life. He wanted the rest of his
life and all of his time to count for eternity and he purposed
that he would live this way. If you're going to glorify God,
you must use the time. that God has apportioned for
you very wisely. And what you need to understand
is that every second and every moment in time is on loan from
God. And there will be a stewardship
and a giving account of that time on the last day. There's a second resolution that
I want us to see. Resolution number seven. Resolution number seven also
talks about time. Edwards fast forwarded in his
mind to the end of his time. Resolved never to do anything
that I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my
life. You see, it was focusing upon
the last hour of his life that brought to the surface what was
most important in his life. Let me ask you this question. If I was to say to you, if God was to say to you, you
only have one hour to live, you only have one hour to live,
and the clock is ticking. How would you spend that last
hour? You think you'd squander it? Do you think you would just goof
off? No doubt there would be people
that you would want to say to them, I love you. There would
be people you would want to embrace. There would be people that you
would want to give a witness to concerning Christ. There would
be sin that you would want to confess. There would be broken relationships
that you would want to restore. Whatever you would do, if you
felt you had one hour to live, that is what is most important
in your life. That is how you need to live
tonight. Whatever you would consider to
be most important in that last hour of your life suddenly is
raised to the surface, suddenly is prioritized, suddenly is magnified. It is to those things that we
must devote ourselves on an ongoing basis. Resolved never to do anything
that I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my
life. Sometimes the hardest decisions
in life are not between good and evil. They are between good, better,
and best. Now, let me tell you something.
You don't have enough time to live for what is good. And you
don't have enough time to live for what is better. You only
have enough time to live for what is best. And what is best
is for you to seek the Lord with all of your heart, and to serve
Him, and to know Him, and to honor Him, and to spread His
name across this world, and to walk in accordance to His will
in your life. And only as we begin at the end
with the last hour of our life and work back to the present
are we able to chart a course to the end of our life and to
come to the conclusion of that life and to have lived it to
the fulfillment of the glory of God. How would you want to live the
last hour of your life? That is what you must attend
to tonight. Jonathan Edwards lived for the
rest of his life with the imprint upon his soul, this may be the
last hour of my life. I want to give you a third resolution
and then we're going to go to his sermon. Resolution number
50. I will act so as I think I shall
judge what have been best and most prudent when I come into
the future world." Now, here's where this fifth resolution goes
even beyond the seventh resolution. The seventh resolution is what
I would do the last hour of my life in this world. This resolution,
the fiftieth, is what will be most important the first hour
in the world to come. What will await me on the other
side? What will be most important when
I stand before the Lord, when I am surrounded by the redeemed
of all the ages, when I am surrounded by the angelic host, as I stand
in the presence of the awesome holiness of Almighty God upon
His throne? What will be most important when
I enter into that future world? Whatever is most important then.
must become job number one tonight. It's been well said, the only
thing going out of this world is the Word of God and the souls
of men. And in one way or another, each one of our lives as believers,
No matter where God has called you, no matter what God has laid
before you, it must be invested in taking the Word of God and
extending it to the lives of souls of men in whatever capacity
that God would call you to serve Him. How are you investing your
life in the ministry of the Word of God to reach the souls of
men? With some, it's in preaching
and teaching. With others, it is investing. With others, it
is in supporting. With others, it is encouraging.
With others, it is sharing the message of the gospel. There
are so many different ways, but your life must be connected with
that which will be most important when you enter into that future
world. If you have your Bibles, turn
to Hebrews 11 just for a moment. Hebrews 11 verse 24. You know it as God's hall of
fame. And I just want to look at the account of this one man,
Moses, because this is how Moses lived his life. Hebrews 11 and
verse 24, by faith Moses, when he had grown refused to become
the son of Pharaoh's daughter. Now that would have really been
getting ahead in the world, to have continued his alignment
with Pharaoh's daughter and to be in some way a part of the
heir of this Egyptian dynasty. But he made some choices in his
life. And in verse 25, choosing rather
to endure ill treatment with the people of God. than to enjoy
the passing pleasures of sin." How can you make choices like
this? That I choose to endure ill-treatment
with the people of God than the passing pleasures of sin? He
goes on to tell us in verse 26, considering the reproach of Christ,
greater riches. than the treasures of Egypt,"
now here it is, for he was looking to the reward. He lived with
an eternal perspective. He looked beyond His death. He
looked to that first hour when He would enter into heaven. He
made decisions in His life not based upon the passing pleasure
of the moment, but what would bring eternal reward for His
life. And that helped Him chart a course
to use His time for God. Look at verse 27, by faith He
left Egypt. not fearing the wrath of the
king, for he endured as seeing Him who is unseen." He lived
not for that which was temporal, but for that which was eternal.
He lived not for that which was seen, but for that which is unseen. This is exactly what Jonathan
Edwards chose to do with his life. This is exactly how Moses
lived. This is how our Savior lived,
who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame. He looked beyond the cross to
the fruit of that sacrifice that He would make, and He endured
all of that because He knew that as He laid down His life, there
would be a people He had purchased for the glory of his father. That's how we must live our lives.
The time that God has allotted to us, we must live it with our
eye upon eternity and what will bring the eternal reward rather
than making decisions based upon the passing pleasure of the moment. Is that where you are tonight?
Are you living with an eternal perspective? Are you living for
that which will be important upon entering into heaven? If
so, you are investing your life very wisely. And it will all
be worth it in that day when he says, well done, good and
faithful servant. I want to look at a sermon that
Edwards preached. It's a sermon entitled, The Preciousness
of Time. It's drawn from Ephesians 5.16,
making the most of your time. If you would allow me just a
footnote. The great awakening occurred 1740 to 1742. There was a precursor to the
Great Awakening that some call the Great Revival. It was from
1734 to 1736 when the fire of heaven first
fell upon the New England colonies. And it was the result of two
sermons that Edwards preached in November of 1734 on justification
by faith. Weeks later, he preached this
very sermon. Souls were not converted until
December of 1734. There were three in his church
in December who came to Christ, were awakened and aroused embrace
the Lord, and then dozens, and then scores, and it increased
dramatically. But this sermon stands at the
headwaters of the revival, the preciousness of time. And Edwards
began this sermon with this heading, why time is precious. Why time is precious. And he
said, first time is precious because time affects eternity. In other words, how you invest
your time will leave its imprint upon all eternity. and invest
your time wisely now today and there will be eternal reward
and eternal dividends, but squander your time today and you will
be the loser in eternity." R.C. Sproul writes a column in his
magazine, Table Talk, and his column is entitled, Right Now
Counts Forever. And I want you to know, right
now does count forever. And Edwards says time is important
because time affects eternity. And then second, because time
is very short. Time is in short supply. And
Edwards said, the scarcity of any commodity occasions men to
set a high value upon it. I was a finance major in college
and I remember taking economics 101. And early on, the very simple
law of supply and demand, as supply goes down, if it is a
precious commodity like gas or oil or food and bread and something
of that nature, when the supply goes down, the value escalates
dramatically. So Edwards said, the scarcity
of any commodity occasions men to set a high value upon it,
especially if it be necessary, and they cannot do without it. So time is the more to be prized
by men because a whole eternity depends upon it, and yet we have
but a little of time. It is but a moment to eternity. However long you have to live
the rest of your life upon this planet, whether one day or 60
years, it's but a bleep on the screen. It is but a moment to
eternity. Time is so short, Edwards said,
and the work which we have to do in it is so great. Your time is short. The work
is so great, you have no time to waste for what God has called
you to do. And then third, Edwards said,
time is so precious because time is uncertain, meaning you don't
know how much time you have yet to live. It's uncertain, so therefore
every day that you have to live is of infinite value. If you
knew you had 70 years to live, then perhaps you could mark it
down. But boast not thouself of tomorrow, for thou knows not
what a day may bring forth. Today may be your very last day."
Richard Baxter said, to preach always as a dying man to dying
men is never to preach again. How all of us must live as a
dying man is never to live again. And then fourth, he said, time
is so precious because time cannot be recovered. He argued, he said,
you could lose an estate, you could lose a vast estate and
declare bankruptcy. And you could regain your wealth
after you've lost it through shrewd investment, and that is
true. Many a man has lost an empire
only to come back even wealthier and stronger. You can lose money
and regain it, but you cannot lose time and ever regain it
again. You can never live today again. You will never have yesterday
to do what should have been done ever again. That's why time is
so precious. And Edwards then said, so who
wastes time? Who is wasting their time? And
of all the many possibilities that he could have listed, he
zeroed in on three people who are wasting their time and thus
wasting their lives. Number one, those who are wasting
their time are those who are involved in idleness. They are
just doing nothing, as Edwards said. It's not that they're doing
bad, it's just that they're doing nothing. Edwards said, they spend
so much of their time at the tavern, over their cups, and
in wandering from house to house, wasting away their hours in idle
and unprofitable talk, which will turn to no good account. And then in rapid-fire succession,
Edwards gave these verses, and I want to read them quickly to
you. Proverbs 14, 23, in all labor there is profit, but mere
talk leads only to poverty. There are people who are consumed
with just hanging out at the coffee shop and just mere talk
and there are no actions, there is no doing of the Word of God. Proverbs 18, 9, he also who is
slack in his work is brother to him who destroys. If you are
slack, if you are a sluggard, you are destroying the productivity
that God would have from your life. Proverbs 19, 15, laziness
casts into a deep sleep and an idle man will suffer hunger. Proverbs 23, 21, and drowsiness
will clothe one with rags. A person with no drive, a person
with no dynamic, a person who is in slow motion. Are you an idle person? What
is your life amounting to for the kingdom of God? What energy? What passion? What drive? Or is it just mere talk? As I look back on my life, and
I say this to encourage you, sometimes I honestly think that
the most productive years of ministry I ever had were those
years when I was in college and I was on the go for God. What an opportunity you have
right now in your life. to make an impact for God. Second,
Edwards, after he said those involved in idleness, he spoke
of those involved in wickedness. And sin is wasting your life.
And those who are caught up in activities of sin is worse than
doing nothing, Edwards said. And he went through a litany
and he just talked about those involved in unclean talk and
corruption and in snaring the minds of others. and bad examples
and leading others into sin and being a distraction to others
and backbiting and talking against others and being involved in
contention and quarreling among yourselves and fomenting and
stirring up strife and contention. Listen, I know people who invest
the majority of their life simply in gossip and slander and tearing
down others, and their lives amount to nothing because they
have no positive use of their time. And then third, Edwards said, those
who are involved in only worldly pursuits. And the key is only. Edwards said, they therefore
whose time is taken up in caring and laboring for the world only,
in inquiring what they shall eat and what they shall drink,
and wherewithal they shall be clothed, in contriving to lay
up for themselves treasures upon earth, how to enrich themselves,
how to make themselves great in the world. or how to live
in comfort and pleasant circumstances while here, who busy their minds
and employ their strength in these things only," he said,
are those who are wasting their time. Now, God has called us
to work. Don't misunderstand. There is
a glory in working, but not to work simply to lay up treasure
on the earth. but to lay up treasure in heaven,
and to use it as a means by which the glory of God may be put on
display in whatever he calls you to do. Finally, he talked
about how to improve your time, and he has four keys. And this
is not like taking a crash course in time management per se. But these are four key principles
that should govern and influence us as we consider how our time
should be used to the maximum. Number one, consider your accountability
to God. that every second and every day
and every moment that you have to live is on loan from God and
you are a steward of that hour and you will give an account
to God in the last day, not only for your talent and not only
for your treasure, but also for your time that has been allotted
to you. Think of that last day and giving
account to God. for the time that has been entrusted
to you." Second, he said, consider how much time you've already
lost. In other words, you don't have
time to continue to waste because you have already lost time in
your life. And he began to unfold that, and he began to talk about
this. Number one, the clock is ticking
and you have already wasted time and opportunities. But second,
with each passing day, God is giving you more responsibility
and God is expecting more from you as you advance down the road
of life and as you are maturing, and so now you have less time
to do a greater amount of work that has been entrusted to you
by God." And then he added, third, as you are growing older, your
energy is being depleted and the physical capacity that you
have is lessening. And the combination of all three
of these is you have less amount of time to do a greater amount
of work in lesser energy. And so he made the appeal to
the young people who were listening in the congregation, now while
you have time, now while you have energy, now while you have
the physical abilities to serve God to the maximum while your
eyes can read and see, while your feet can run, while your
hands are strong, while your shoulders are steady, now serve
God. Don't wait until you're old.
And your body can't do what is in your heart to do. So consider the time that you've
already lost. And then third, he said, consider
those at the end of their time. Go to the end of someone's life. Go into that bedroom, he said. Listen to what they say on their
deathbed. People used to die not in hospitals,
but if they had some sense that it was coming in a home. They would gather the family
around them if this was able to be anticipated. And the family
would lean forward to hear What were the last words they would
say? Edward said, such have cried
out, oh, a thousand worlds for an inch of time. Oh, if I only
had time again to live my life. Listen to those who are at the
end of their time. They don't want more money. They
don't want a better job. They don't want more this or
that. They want the time again to live in a way that would honor
God. And then he says, fourth and
finally, consider those who are past their time. Consider those
who have run out of time. Consider those who have already
descended down into the pit of hell. Consider those who have
left time and who have stepped into eternity, and those who
have no more time What thoughts do you think they would have
of its preciousness who have lost all their opportunity for
obtaining eternal life and have gone to hell? Though they were
very lavish of their time while they lived and set no great value
upon it, yet how they have changed their judgments now. They had
so much time just to… to waste their time, to abuse their time. But now that they are in hell,
they have a different judgment of the time that was allotted
to them. And oh, how they would give anything to have a moment
in time again to commit their life to Christ and to turn from
their sin and to do that which would count for eternity. And
so Edwards concluded this sermon. And he said, seek the Lord while
He may be found. Call upon Him while He is near.
He pled with His listeners that day that now is a day of grace. Now is an opportunity to give
your life to Christ, and you may never have an opportunity
like this again the rest of your life. He then said, behold, now
is the accepted time. Behold, today is the day of salvation. I want to say to you, if you
do not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you must believe
upon Him tonight. You must surrender your life
to Him tonight. What a fool you would be to go
beyond tonight without Christ in your life. Knowing that you
could die tomorrow, Christ could come back tonight. Wise is the
man and woman. who believes upon Christ in the
present. Fast forward with me to the end
of Edward's life. As Rick shared with us, he was
put out of his church after twenty-two plus years of faithful ministry. He then spent the next seven
years of his life in obscurity in Stockbridge ministering to
Indians, riding his theological tomes on the backs of bills. He had run out of paper on which
to even write the greatest books ever written in America. The
call came at the end of those seven years from the board of
trustees at what is now Princeton University to be the successor
of his son-in-law, who had been the second president, Aaron Burr,
Sr., and to come be the third president. They said it was the only time
anyone ever saw Edwards cry. He refused and said, I'm unworthy. Humility, humility, humility. They appealed again and said,
you are the man of the hour. You must come and lead this institution
and you may complete your works. Edwards came to Princeton in
January of 1758. He was installed as the third
president. Four weeks later, with what would
be the final volume of his life yet to be written, Only 55 years
of age and the full harvest yet in front of him. On his desk
was the history of the work of redemption, which he intended
to expand and become his magnum opus. It would be a treasure
for the church on par with the institutes of the Christian religion
by John Calvin or the bondage of the will by Luther. It looked
as if he had stepped into his moment to leave his imprint upon
the church. He took a smallpox vaccination
in February, and he responded with the opposite reaction. His throat began to swell to
the point he could no longer swallow. None of his family was there
except one daughter, Lucy. And he realized he would now
die. He had prepared for his entire
life for this day. And he said, dear Lucy, it seems
to me to be the will of God that I must shortly leave you. Therefore,
give my kindest love to my dear wife and tell her that the uncommon
union, which has so long subsisted between us, has been of such
a nature as I trust is spiritual and will therefore continue forever. And I hope she will be supported
under so great a trial and submit cheerfully to the will of God
And as to my children, you are now to be left fatherless, which
I hope will be an inducement to you all to seek a father who
will never fail you." Jonathan Edwards died as he lived,
bringing glory to God. He was not a man who lived with
regrets and died with regrets. He lived with resolution and
he died with resolution, and he had run the course that God
had set before him. Because as an 18-year-old young
man, he purposed to hit the finish line with his chest out to win
the victory that God had for him. Sarah, his wife, was in Stockbridge. Edward's physician had the difficult
task of sending the message. And days later, she wrote to
Esther, another daughter, "'What shall I say? A holy and good
God has covered us with a dark cloud. Edwards preached the sovereignty
of God and the providence of God, and in this, her darkest
hour, she believed that it was a God-ordained day, that her
husband had come to the end of his God-appointed days, and that
this was his last day from God, and she accepted this by grace
and believed that this day had come from God. She said, oh,
that we may kiss the rod. Those were the last words of
John Calvin also upon his deathbed, believing that even this sickness
unto death was a rod from God, and she chose to kiss the rod
and accept it as from the Lord. Oh, that we may lay our hands
on our mouth, meaning not speak a word against God, but accept
this as His sweet providence, the Lord has done it. He has
made me adore His goodness that we had Him so long. But my God
lives, and He has my heart. Oh, what a legacy my husband
and your father has left to us. We are all given to God, and
there I am and love to be your ever-affectionate mother, Sarah
Edwards." She was his number one disciple.
who had sat under his preaching and had loved to accept and learned
to accept the sovereignty of God in all things, and accepted
even her husband's death as the perfect timing of God. How will it be when you come
to the end of your life? How will it be when you have
run the race and completed the race that God has set before Will you conclude with resolution
that your life has been lived to the maximum for the glory
of God? I conclude with this resolution,
52. Resolved, I frequently hear persons
in old age say how they would live if they were to live their
lives over again. resolved that I will live just
so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live
to an old age. When you come to the end of your
life, may you not be filled with regret because you have wasted
your life. May you occupy the time now while
you're And may you go for broke for the glory of God. And one
day when you stand before the Savior, you will be so glad when
you hear him say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. You invested the time that I
allotted to you. Oh, so wisely for my glory. Let us pray. Father, here tonight, we stand
in a moment of time. And this is a God-ordained hour
that from before time began, you set your heart upon this
hour. And you have brought many into
this room tonight. to be brought to the place where they consider time and
death and eternity. Father, you have entrusted to
each one of us in this room different allotments of time. Some may perhaps live to be old. Some here tonight may not live
to return to go to class. Some may die young, some may
die in their mid years. As we would put our hands into
our pocket and consider every coin of time that you have already
entrusted to us, we do not know how many are in there. But God,
we ask for your wisdom and we ask for your grace. We ask for
your discernment. We ask for your understanding
that we may live so as to improve our time and live as if it were
our last hour. And oh God, what will be most
important when we enter into the future world make it most
important in our hearts tonight. And Father, we will serve you
and we will give our lives to your glory, for we are so resolved
by your grace to do so. In Jesus' name, amen.